


playing with my shadow

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [24]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - College/University, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Gen, Genderqueer Character, Humanstuck, Mental Health Issues, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5205620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Mituna Captor, and you should not be trusted to care for a cactus, let alone a kid your brother's age. Your name is Porrim Maryam and you have trouble finding the time or drive to eat and carry 20 credit hours, let alone keep an eye on a minor. Your name is Kurloz Makara, and you have several misdeeds to atone for. Perhaps this can be step one. </p><p>Your name is Calliope Calver, Callie to your friends, and after yet another busted lip, after one jeer too many, you decide, halfway through your second year of high school, to run away from home. Your friend Kanaya finds you a place to stay - her sister's apartment, actually - until you can find other arrangements.</p><p>Prompt based drabbles, in no real chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. introductions

_when the world just treats you wrong,_  
_just come with me and i’ll take you home._  
_no need to pack a bag…_  
_who put your life in the danger zone?_  
_you running, dropping like a rolling stone._  
_no time to pack a bag…_  
_\- janelle monae_

**january 2009 - mituna captor**

you’re kinda confused when you see a person dressed masculine of center (a dress shirt, a sweater vest, and immaculately pressed dark pants) making coffee in your kitchen. mostly because butch does not exist anywhere in porrim’s vocabulary, and also because this person is about nine shades lighter than your actual roommate. you wonder if porrim brought home one of her one night stands by accident, and decide to ask her in the most subtle way you know.

“hey popo! we need to talk!” you yell, banging on the bathroom door.

the shower turns off, and porrim opens the door a few inches, clad only in a towel.

“yes?”

you point back to the kitchen, and make vigorous pelvic thrusting gestures so she gets the idea. “who’s the new conquest?”

she looks at you like you’ve said something more offensive than usual, her mouth set in one long, disapproving line.

“she’s not a conquest,” porrim tells you. “but kanaya asked me to do her a favor and let her stay over for a few days.”

“you coulda told me,” you point out.

“i only found out at about two this morning, and you were dead to the world.”

right. okay. whatever. more people in your studio apartment. just what you need out of life. you nearly trip over the invader’s duffel bag as you stumble away from the bathroom.

new roomie introduces herself as callie, as she pours herself a cup of coffee with one hand, and adjusts her collar with the other. you shake her hand.

when she turns to face you fully, you notice her busted lip, along with the burn scars covering about a third of her face. the scars look old, but the lip looks pretty recent.

you decide not to ask.

later, after newbie leaves, porrim swears up and down that she’s not some kid who ran away from home, that she’s eighteen and a freshman at lehman college. 

yeah, okay. 

if she’s a day over sixteen, you’ll eat all the candles on her next birthday cake, but your roommate (the older one) is adamant about this one. the more you press her about this chick’s background, the less she wants to tell you.

fuck it, you’ll find out. you have your ways.

TA: H3Y 84574RD  
TA: N33D UR H3LP  
TA2: what make2 you thiink ii ever want two help you?  
TA2: you 2tiill haven’t paiid me back the $177.50 that you needed two pay rent la2t month.  
TA: Y0ULL G37 UR M0N3Y W3N 1 G37 P41D 0N FR1DAY  
TA: 1 L173R4LLY JU57 W4NN4 45K Y0U 50M3 QU35710N5  
TA2: what kiind of que2tion2?  
TA2: iim on the bu2 riight now.  
TA: 0K 50  
TA: 0U7 0F 4LL 73H 4CN3 R1DD3N L053R5 1N UR CL45535  
TA: D0 Y0U H4PP3N 7W0 KN0W 50M30N3 N4M3D C4L 50M37H1NG  
TA2: unfortunately  
TA2: ii prefer not to 2peak of hiim  
TA2: siince he2 a fuckiing 2ociiopath and all

you feel a fist of ice take hold in your chest. you haven’t been this scared for porrim since she was in high school, still dating aranea. you’re going to kill her.

TA: FUCK1NG GR347  
TA2: liiterally all he doe2 ii2 plot the overthrow of the government and 2mack hii2 2ii2ter around.

wait.

TA: H15 51573R  
TA2: yeah, hii2 twiin 2i2ter  
TA2: calliiope

….oh.

TA: C4LL10P3?  
TA2: yeah  
TA2: 2he2 iin my ap world cla22.  
TA: R1GH7  
TA: TH4NK U F0R UR 4551474NC3  
TA2: miind telliing me what thii2 i2 about?  
TA: Y34  
TA: CY4 L473R

after porrim leaves for class, you idly look through the duffel bag on the floor. it’s full of clothes, toiletries, and books. a chemistry textbook, a math b textbook, and an ap world history textbook, along with a copy of 1984.

looking through all this stuff gives you deja vu back to 2005.

so you make a mental note to give porrim a piece of your mind, kankri-style, for letting a high school sophomore hide out in your apartment, favor to her sister or not. 


	2. acclimation

oh the queen of peace,  
always does her best to please,  
but is it any use?  
somebody’s gotta lose.  
\- florence + the machine

_105\. age - january 2009_

your new roommate is out taking her midterm exams, thank god. porrim adores her, but you can barely stand her.

originally this was going to be a chill day for you and latula to play video games and ignore the universe, until porrim decided to ask your girlfriend a more pressing question.

you have to admit that you too want to know the answer once you hear the question. 

“it’s not legal,” latula says, after a few minutes of research.  “in order to become emancipated, she has to be living away from her parents, not receiving any financial support from them, have a job as her main source of income, an–”

“she has all of those,” porrim interjects.

latula sighs loudly.

“and she has to be at least seventeen, which i'm almost sure she isn't. how old did you say she was?”

you know porrim’s going to try to insist that she’s eighteen again, so you cover her mouth.

“she’s sixteen,” you reply.

“damn,” latula says. “just under the requirement.”

_120\. honesty - january 2009_

“you’ve been here nine days.”

“i know.”

“when’re your parents going to start looking for you?”

“they’re not.”

“really?”

“no. i think they feel guilty.”

“for what?”

callie turns away from you, and refuses to answer.

_133\. stress - january 2009._

these are the problems you have with callie.

1\. nobody told you she was moving in or whatever. porrim told you she was doing kanaya a favor by letting her friend stay for five days. it’s been at least twice that.  
2\. both you and porrim could get into trouble for this arrangement, considering the nonexistent legality of it. porrim points out to you that you’ve a) dismantled the smoke detector and b) smoke weed in the apartment on a regular basis, without balking at the illicit nature of that. you point out to her that three wrongs don’t make a right.    
2\. callie is way too nice to be an actual human being.  
3\. she has a penchant for tidying up your messes (unlike porrim, who has given up), meaning that you can’t find your stuff.   
4\. she’s way too nice to be an actual human being, so you can’t crack jokes at her expense without feeling bad.  
5\. she’s in the same grade as your brother, which automatically makes her lame as fuck.  
6\. nobody will tell you fucking anything about her.

calliope is about as forthcoming with her background as a secret agent. porrim’s mouth is sealed tight. sollux refuses to respond whenever you hit him up to ask him shit related to this. 

all he says is that it’s good that she’s staying with you and porrim. 

you can’t imagine how living with two cynical college students could be good for anyone.

_25\. mystery - february 2009._

you are in the middle of the important but delicate task of cleaning out your bong when she comes up behind you.

“excuse me, mr. captor?”

you wince at “mr. captor”, but not visibly. 

“what.”

she points at the hole in the ceiling, the wires hanging out of it.

“whatever happened to the smoke detector?”

you shrug. “uh, tragic accident involving me, a step-ladder and a screwdriver.”

“i see.”

she could give porrim a run for her money in terms of passive-aggressive disapproval, and porrim’s neutral expression could be a picture underneath the dictionary definition of “resting bitch face”, nevermind when she’s actually annoyed.

“listen,” you begin. “we both wanted to smoke without going outside and freezing to death, so i um, made a few modifications.”

you have no idea why the hell you’re trying to justify yourself to some teenage scrub. 

_148\. ask - february 2009._

for the first time in six days, you have the apartment entirely to yourself. porrim is staying at meenah’s for the evening. you’re both proud that she’s getting it in and elated to have some goddamn peace and quiet, which you can use to play halo.

then, at ass o’ clock, roommate numero dos unlocks the door -  _when did porrim give her a set of keys?_ \- and strolls in, kicking off her shoes and dropping her bag on the air mattress next to the sofa.

you look at the time. it’s nearly midnight. she looks like she’s going to keel over dead of exhaustion.

“out dancing?” you ask her.

“sorry, no.”

you light a cigarette and roll your eyes. “so where were you?”

“at work.”

she’s a waitress at this awful diner on grand concourse. you and kurloz used to ditch class and go there whenever you had the munchies, but you’d never recommend it to anyone, because the entire menu tastes like dog food, nor would you ever want to work there, because all the patrons are assholes.

however, it pays. 

porrim still refuses to accept rent from her, but callie finds other ways of contributing - buying groceries, cleaning, doing laundry, that sort of thing. 

she even buys you a pack of smokes the week before you get paid, and that’s when you find out that she’s got a fake ID stating her birth date as something in 1990.

“people ask fewer questions when you’re eighteen,” she explains.

that’s true, you suppose.

_3\. sleep - february 2009._

during her fifth week in your apartment, you wake up from a weird dream and learn that she recites poetry whenever she cannot sleep. unable to go back to sleep yourself, you open one bleary eye and hear her in the bathroom, talking to herself quietly.

 _“april is the cruelest month, breeding_  
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
memory and desire, stirring  
dull roots with spring rain…”

you listen to her recitation, which sounds like a gentle lullaby, rocking you back and forth. an minute or two later, she emerges. you lock eyes with her.

 _“they called me the hyacinth girl,”_  you tell her, against all better judgment.

she claps her hands once, and the crooked smile blooming across her face very nearly reaches her eyes. 

_114\. determination - march 2009._

porrim has a classic type a personality. if she got any more neurotic, she’d be a female version of your brother. and while she’s otherwise occupied memorizing reaction mechanisms for her orgo exam and chain smoking, calliope takes it upon herself to make breakfast.

although you’re a little afraid that she might have decided to poison you - there’s no way nobody is actually this nice - you chance a bite of food. then, you devour your entire plate and ask for seconds.

for her part, porrim tries a mouthful, compliments calliope’s cooking and goes back to studying. callie shoots you a little  _“do something”_  look. she must have noticed the fact that pomary has about nine meals a week. 

ah, yes, getting porrim to eat. one of your favorite exercises in futility, right below trying to push a cat sideways. evidently, calliope doesn’t know the way things go around here.

there’s a list of shit neither you nor porrim talks about, having given up on the whole thing. she doesn’t bitch you out for skipping your meds whenever you need to cram for exams, and you don’t say anything to her about food as long as she eats at least a meal a day.

theoretically, this avoidance is a terrible idea.

you two were never known for having particularly great ideas.

_6\. secret - march 2009._

it was really only a matter of time before callie found out certain things about you, although having her walk in on you trying to mend a run in your stockings while still wearing one of porrim’s dresses, was not how you’d planned to tell her.

actually, scratch that, you didn’t plan to tell her. you haven’t even told your brother yet. 

also, she was only supposed to be staying for a few days. it’s been seven weeks. not that you mind her presence as much anymore, but still. didn’t anyone ever teach her how to knock?

“oh!” she exclaims, dropping the notebook she’s holding. “i’m sorry!”

she closes the bathroom door hurriedly.

later, once you’re safely clad in a pacman shirt and a ripped pair of shorts again, you sit down next to her on the couch, while she works on her english homework. she apologizes for not knocking. you accept the apology, but that does nothing to allay your anxiety.

“i won’t tell porrim about your fashion choices, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she tells you.

“popo already knows,” you respond. “and it’s more than fashion choices.”

you wait for some kind of disapproval that never comes. 

“okay,” she says. “do you want me to call you a different name?”

“nah, i’m good.”

_34\. mistake - march 2009._

you’re not a particularly perceptive person. in fact, a lot of your issues with others can probably be chalked up to either 1. your penchant for saying the first thing that comes to mind, or 2. your inability to notice jack shit.

since callie gets on fine with your other friends, you make the mistake of inviting kurloz over to play video games without checking with her.

everything starts out well enough between them. she’s as unfailingly polite and cheery as always, and he’s… his usual inscrutable self. 

he makes the motion of a pen writing on paper, and she hands him one of her notebooks.

 _“calliope, right?”_  he writes. she nods.

“that is correct.”

_“i knew it. i’m friends with your brother.”_

one time, you got so wasted that you nearly fell off the fire escape and plummeted six stories to your doom. the expression of sheer, naked terror on porrim’s face then was sort of like the one on callie’s now.

“oh.”

quickly, she puts on a pair of shoes and leaves the apartment without a word. no coat, no nothing. 

“why are you friends with him?” you want to know later.

_“he and i have the same taste in movies.”_

right, yeah. slasher flicks and serial killer documentaries. 

you could believe it.


	3. tension

_hey you, out there on the road,_  
_always doing what you’re told,_  
_can you help me?_

_hey you, out there beyond the wall,_  
_breaking bubbles in the hall,_  
_can you help me?_  
\- pink floyd

_165\. cry - march 2009._

she doesn’t come home immediately. she doesn’t even come home after you text her to say that kurloz is gone at around nine. you pack your bong, light it, and stare at the clock, vaguely worried, even though it’s not your problem whatever this idiot gets into on her own time.

porrim comes home from work at midnight, and joins your vigil. she doesn’t give you any shit for letting kurloz come over, thank god, not even after you tell her what happened earlier. 

as concerned as she is about it, even more concerned when callie doesn’t answer her phone, she passes out an hour later.

“wake me up when she gets in, okay?”

you won’t.

at ten past two, someone rings the bell. porrim turns over once, murmuring something, and then goes back to sleep in earnest. you walk over to the speaker.

“who is it?”

“it’s um, me?” comes the slurring voice. “it’s calliope.”

you buzz her in and open the front door. it takes her a few minutes to stumble up the stairs, and when she does, her shirt’s untucked, her little hat is gone, and she’s reeking of vodka. you look back over at porrim, who continues to snore gently.

“what the actual fuck?” you ask.

“i was out with friends.”

you turn sideways so the short girl can come in, holding the door open. you get a good look at her face and realize she’s been crying.

“how much did you have to drink?”

“two.”

yeah, okay. 

“shots, or glasses?”

“what do you care?”

that has to be the rudest thing you’ve heard her say in the nine or ten weeks she’s been here. she tries to take off her shoes and trips over her own feet. holy shit, is she drunk. you loop your arm in hers and guide her gently over to her air mattress.

“cal, just sit down for a minute,” you tell her gently.

 _“don’t call me that!”_ she roars. 

even porrim wakes up at that. she goggles at callie for a few seconds, and you mouth the words “don’t ask” at her. she doesn’t, and you’re eternally thankful.

after a few minutes, callie falls into a uncertain sleep, whispering things you can’t understand.

cram-jammed onto the futon with porrim, with her head tucked under your chin, you listen to her breathing for a while, and fall asleep as well. not for long, because your third roommate awakens with a scream and a crash.

porrim climbs over you, steps over to the air mattress, and sits down, practically cradling callie in her arms.

“shh, shh, it’s going to be okay,” she says, rocking the younger girl back and forth. 

callie gazes up at her, her eyes not quite focusing properly.

“where’s my mum?” she wants to know.

porrim smiles uncomfortably and tightly.

“you’re with us. porrim and mituna. remember?”

that’s when callie starts crying in earnest, and you two let her be. you guys were the same way when you first got here.

_137\. motivation - march 2009._

“i was scared he’d find me, so i ran for it.”

“kurloz?”

“my brother.”

“and while you were running, you decided to get trashed.” and before you can think better of saying it, “great idea with the underage drinking thing, dude.”

goddamn, mituna. you sound as judgmental as your mother. when did you become a responsible human being? is this bizarro world?

“you’re underage, and you drink,” she points out.

“not like that,” you counter. “also, i’m twenty, not fourteen.”

_“sixteen.”  
_

“same fucking difference.”

that’s when it hits you that you’re the oldest person living in this apartment by a decent margin. porrim is more than two years younger than you, and barely an adult. 

“i thought he was going to give caliborn the address. i thought he was going to find me.”

you still don’t know what the hell happened between them, but you can sort of fill in the blanks with callie’s propensity for flinching at her own shadow. idly, you wonder if the burn scars on her face are his fault too, but honestly, you don’t really want to know. 

you don’t need to take the train up to bedford park and strangle him.

“he’s not going to find you,” you say finally. “if he does, porrim’ll beat him to death with her handbag. don’t worry about it.”

you think of offering her one or two of your ativan, but that’s probably a bad idea with alcohol in her system. she’ll keel right over, and then you’ll be really boned.

“if you do stupid shit like get mad wasted, or miss school with a hangover, you’re more likely to get picked up and sent home. and then we’re all fucked. you’re back at square one, and popo and i go to jail. so do me a favor.”

“yes?” she asks.

“don’t do that shit.”

“understood.” 

_117\. intuition - april 2009._

“i signed up for my classes for next year,” callie says. 

eternally curious, you look over her shoulder, at her laptop screen, which is open to naviance. she’s registered for ap us history, honors precalculus, creative writing, french 3, ap physics b, and orchestra. a decent haul, all things considered.

“physics b?” you ask, a little surprised.

“yes.”

you snort. “you like physics?”

why didn’t you know this earlier? you could have had someone to commiserate with.

“it can be kind of interesting when viewed from a certain lens,” she tells you. 

that’s a no, then.

porrim closes her orgo textbook and turns to callie, a little smile playing on her face.

“such as taking it with roxy lalonde?” she asks. 

callie’s face reddens, and she covers her mouth with her hand.

“um…”

you vaguely know roxy lalonde as sollux’s arch-rival. if he’s not bitching about karkat, he’s bitching about her. apparently, she’s able to match him grade for grade without studying half as hard. if you hear sollux lament his fear of not being valedictorian one more time, you’ll jump off the fire escape.

you don’t recall your stint in high school being nearly this dramatic.

“good luck,” you tell callie, going back to copying porrim’s sociology homework.

“why do you say that?”

she has no idea what she’s getting into, which you would laugh at, except she’s roughly the color of a tomato at the moment. it seems like a bit of a cheap shot. 

“cause, physics b is fucking hard, and i’m pretty sure psii gets off on trying to fail people.”

porrim shakes her head. “you didn’t think it was hard, tuna.”

“it’s hard for mortals.”

“i didn’t think it was difficult either.”

“it’s hard for mortals.”

she laughs at you, and you know she’s forgiven you for smoking her last cigarette.

_322\. shock - april 2009._

you’re pretty sure callie has this sixth sense of the most inopportune times to do anything, because one fine afternoon when she’d told you she was staying at school late to work on the literary magazine, she instead walks in on you and porrim having sex.

“hey guys, i brought home dinn– _oh my word!”_

she claps a hand over her eyes and runs back out of the apartment. 

on top of you, with all the color drained from her face, porrim stares straight ahead, her mouth set in a straight, mortified, line.

“tell me that didn’t happen.”

“uh, yeah, totally dude,” you reply. “you just imagined the whole thing. so did i.”

148.  _ask - april 2009._

you can hear them talking on the fire escape.

“we’re just, um, really good friends.”

“friends,” callie confirms, incredulously.

“yes.”

“but, like–”

“friends.”

“aren’t you dating meenah?”

“that’s correct.”

“and isn’t ze dating–”

“yes.”

“so…”

“so, sometimes, things happen that you don’t intend.”

“okay.”

porrim sighs loudly.

“how well can you keep a secret?”

you groan, lie back on the futon, cover your face with a pillow, and contemplate smothering yourself. this is like the time you had to give sollux the talk, but worse.

_167\. party - may 2009._

you’re in the middle of baking porrim a cake - with callie’s help - to celebrate her perfect GPA for this semester, when your hands give one great twitch and drop the mixing bowl. it falls, and predictably shatters, coating the floor in chocolate batter and bits of glass.

you hate this. you hate olanzapine and its side effects. you hate yourself.

“goddamn, i’m so motherfucking useless, fucking—”

callie grabs a broom and a sponge.”

“mituna, it’s fine.”

she throws you the broom.

you spend the next half hour cursing at the floor and the universe while you clean. in the end, you end up buying a cake from this bakery on chrystie street. 

for the remainder of the night, you hope that nobody steps in broken glass.

porrim drinks a few glasses of merlot, and then she and callie dance to prince. you cannot dance unless there’s a DDR mat in front of you, so you don’t even try. 

you also don’t miss the way callie’s gaze lingers on porrim, watching her eat (praise jesus), watching the way she loosens up and actually giggles. you’re sure that if you’d properly looked in a mirror last year, you would have seen that expression on your face a few times. maybe this year too.

“tuna, dance with us!” porrim calls.

you raise an eyebrow.

“i can’t dance.”

“do it anyway?” callie asks. “please?”

she looks so dorky in her gray button-down, her sweater vest, her bow tie, her straight cut jeans. you are pretty sure those are the only types of clothing she owns. you stand in front of her, aware that she has to be the better part of a foot shorter than you.

“so, lemme show you how it’s done,” you tell her. “popo, stop laughing.”

“i wasn’t laughing.”

“may i have this dance, my dear?” callie asks, like someone straight out of a 50s movie. you wait for her to kiss your hand, and you’re surprised when she doesn’t.

you’re going to either trip her, or trip yourself, and porrim is tipsy enough that she’ll just laugh at you two before she asks if you’re okay. but whatever, you’ll swipe some of her smokes tomorrow, and then you’ll be even.

if someone told you a year ago that a year from then, you’d be in your own apartment, dancing to purple rain with some pocket sized butch chick, you’d ask them to get their head examined.

nevertheless, life is fucking weird.

and callie is a pretty awful dancer too, so at least you’re on a level playing field.

_172\. uncomfortable - may 2009._

one day when she comes home with a giant bruise on her forearm, you’re angry. except angry probably isn’t the right word. furious is closer, but not even that’s quite there.

“what the actual fuck.”

“caliborn asked me something, and grabbed my arm a little too hard when i wouldn’t tell him.”

a little too hard. right. 

you’re going to tell sollux to get into the computers at his school and give him caliborn’s address, and then you’re going to beat him unconscious. you are going to put the fear of god in this kid somehow, and even if he doesn’t fear god by the time you’re done, he will most certainly fear the shit out of you.

“are you okay?” she asks.

you should be asking her that, but that’s not how it happens.

“yeah. fine. just fine,” you respond.

feeling a little sick, you go into the bathroom to take a leak after porrim’s finished showering for work. a number flashes up at you from the scale in the corner.  it does absolutely nothing for your nausea, and you take a few steadying breaths to still yourself before you puke on the linoelum. once you’re done, you walk over to porrim, lean down behind her, and put your chin on her shoulder.

“can we talk?”

she glances at you, confused, then glances at the bathroom door. she walks inside, and looks down at the scale nervously, but the number is gone. you know she understands, and that’s what’s important. 

“i don’t think so, tuna,” she says slowly, while she does her makeup in the bathroom mirror.

“i’m not angry at you!” you swear, and that makes callie gaze up, curious. 

and it’s true. you’re not angry. you’re fucking scared. 

“i’m running late, sorry.”

“after you get home, then. i’ll be awake.”

“maybe? i guess so.”

you’re willing to bet your entire checking account that she’s going to call you later and tell you she’s working overtime. wait, trash and vaudeville closes at eleven. she’s going to hide out at meenah’s then. you just know it.

and you don’t know when the hell you became the sensible one in this apartment, but the feeling of knowing the tables have turned is vertiginous to behold.

you pull out your phone.

TA: Y0 G0LDM3M83R  
CC: and what the glubbing shell do you want, tuna-fish?  
TA: 74LK 7W0 UR GF  
TA: PL3453

you tell callie about this later, after porrim’s gone.

“we should tell someone,” she says gravely.

“like who?”

“i don’t know!” she yells, eyes gone wide. “places! there are hospitals, an–”

“she’d kill me. she’d never tell me anything again. also, i’ve been there before. it fucking sucks.”

“you’ve been…”

“in the psych ward,” you clarify.

even though she’d probably find a way talk her way out, the idea of sending porrim to a place like that makes your skin crawl. that wouldn’t be burning your bridges with her, that would be calling in a napalm airstrike.

_71\. breathe - june 2009._

‘i’ve found this place on kingsbridge road, and i think i could be moved in there by juneish? after finals and regents exams?” callie asks. “they haven’t asked that many questions.”

you briefly revel in the idea of the air mattress being gone from your floor, of having your apartment mostly to yourself again. in a way, it’ll be almost odd after the last five months, since you’ve gotten used to your third roommate, for better or worse.

you shrug.

“you don’t have to leave unless you want to.”

callie nods. “okay.”

“also, i think it’ll be easier for you to get a place legitimately after next january,” porrim chimes in.

right, yeah. seventeen, and all.

you reach out, straighten callie’s tie, and say something against all your better judgment.

“dude, you’re already here, what’s the big deal? stay.”

she gives you the widest smile you’ve ever seen on her face. then she does something unexpected. she grabs the both of you in a tight group hug. some of her tears fall onto your neck.

 _“thank you,”_  she breathes.

porrim kisses her once on the forehead, and she turns this impressive shade of tomato red. trying to keep your face straight, you memorize that scene for posterity. you are going to mentally replay that later on and laugh your ass off.

“popo, you’re gonna give her a heart attack.”

callie looks at the floor, embarassed. porrim rolls her eyes.

“i can’t take you anywhere, tuna.”

“we’re at home.”

“it’s an expression.”


	4. apology

1\. forgiveness - april 2009, kurloz makara

  
tuna and pomary are asleep, as befitting their insane credit loads, leaving you and callie awake, and watching some random disney movie. you’ve been avoiding this conversation for ages upon ages, but now seems as good a time as any to have it.

 _“callie, can i talk to you on the balcony?_ ” you write on the pad of paper in front of you, and pass it over to her. timorous and shaking, she reads over your words.

after giving a long, nervous sigh, her hands continuing to quiver, she agrees.

“of course, mr. makara,” she says, giving you a faint smile.

there are a trillion things you wish to convey to her, the problem with that being that you can’t decide on just one to say, or write, as the case may be. on the fire escape, you two sit side by side, and she does not flinch then. she opens a pack of cigarettes and offers you one.

(when did she start smoking? when did that happen.) 

after you refuse, she extricates one from the pack, puts it in her mouth, and lights it. smoke drifts from her nostrils in faint curlicues, her gaze darting furtively from one place to another. she’s scared of you, and worse off, you deserve it.

“was there something you wished to talk about?” she asks.

the gentle breeze sends your hair into further disarray. 

as quickly as you draft sentences on the legal pad, you cross them out. you have never been particularly adept at conveying the things you’ve needed to say most. one more sentence written, more a paragraph to be honest, inspiring yet another crossout on your part. your sheet of paper is more crossouts than actual text.

you’ll never get this right, but you’re willing to do your best. you need her to understand, even if the words you can offer her are inadequate.

“i’m sorry,” you finally write, large enough that she can see it, with your legs crossed underneath you. you avert your gaze from the burn scars covering her face, because you’re torn between the urge to cry or strangle the person who gave them to her.

she reads the message over, and gazes up at you in faint confusion.

“you’re sorry, kurloz?” she confirms.

you nod.

“for what?”

_“for continuing to stick by your motherfuckin bastard of a brother for so long.”_

she shrugs, and shakes her head, taking a long drag off one of porrim’s cigarettes. gently, she touches your hand.

“kurloz, your friends are your own,” she reminds you. “i don’t hold the people with whom you choose to associate against you.”  
she should, though.

the more you learn about the life she’s lead, the more you kick yourself for actually befriending that utterly evil waste of oxygen.

being a general douche to one’s siblings is pretty much a law of physics, but the kind of abuse caliborn perpetrated on his sister whenever he got the chance, the sort of acts you were vaguely aware of, but let slide because you’d found ways to ignore writing on the wall, that’s another story entirely. that’s unforgivable, that you would sit there and do nothing for so long.

you imagine someone treating your brother, your mind-fried nuisance of a little brother, similarly, and have to choke back the bile and rage that seizes your windpipe. you’d kill them on the spot. you’d douse them in lighter fluid, set them on fire, and watch as they burned to nothing more than ash and cinder.  
and calliope is the same age as gamzee - sixteen. yet she already carries the weight of the world. sure, she giggles with porrim about what she might wear to junior prom next year, but you know a facade when you see it. you can tell that - even after living away from her brother for ages - she continues to look over her shoulder, as if he might pop out of the hall closet like some sort of boogeyman.

and while you’re not caliborn, you were his friend. you could have done something. you could have intervened. you could have chosen to see beyond his threadbare excuses, but you did not. you merely turned a blind eye.

you chide mituna for having poor judgment, but who are you to make such statements?

 _“callie, you’re terrified of me,”_ you scrawl back. it’s not like she can even deny the way she flinches whenever you drop by to visit mituna and porrim, and she also happens to be around.

“only when i thought that you would tell him where i was staying,” she replies.

you may be a morally reprehensible fuck, but you would never narc on anyone, and you emphatically inform her of this fact.

 _“your secret is safe. my lips are sealed,”_ you write, a smile threatening at the corners of your mouth at your little joke. at this, she actually laughs, nearly choking on her cigarette on the inhale.

“and if you ever need someone to kill him, i’m your guy.”

she chuckles, nods, and assures you that if she ever requires such services, you’ll be the first one she’ll consult. then, she envelops you in one of her usual bonecrushing hugs. it’s amazing that such a tiny girl can contain so much strength in her.

“thank you, kurloz,” she tells you, once she’s let go of you.

you shake your head at her, and write one final message.

_“no, callie. thank you.”_


	5. safety

138\. family: 2009 - 2010, Calliope Calver

faced by the bleak reality of your life, you turned inward, into a world of fantasy. when you were a child, you wrote enough fairy tales to fill several notebooks.

inspired by the likes of harry potter, you created worlds where you were special, where you were different, where one day, you’d be whisked from the place you’d once called home and into some kind of brave new existence.

they’d come one day, someone like hagrid or dumbledore, and take you away, far away from the place you lived, leading you by the hand into a hopeful future.

_“this is not your real family, calliope. you were meant for so much more.”_

of course, as you grew older, you realized how utterly childish those dreams were. you had a mother, you had a father, you had a brother whom your father doted on, and the more you looked at them, the more you realized that this was your family. there could be no question. you looked too much like them.

there would be no magical escape, no deus ex machina to rescue you. only the mundane day-to-day life. no way out until you finally graduated from high school and went to a college across the country.

now, though, living on your own, you wonder if some of those old stories of yours contained more truth than you’d realized. while albus dumbledore, with his long beard and twinkling eyes, never came to deliver your hogwarts letter, all was not lost.

in the end, it was down to you to save yourself, and you did.

in the dead of night, you packed everything you’d thought you’d need - textbooks, school notebooks, class handouts, clothes, toiletries, and a single writing notebook, one in which you’d once penned tales of fantastical places. for old time’s sake.

(UU: i am sorry to bother yoU so late, my dear friend, but i have finally done it.  
GA: Done What, Exactly?  
UU: ive rUn away.  
UU: im free.

GA: Oh Dear  
GA: Are You Safe Callie?  
UU: safer than i have ever been.  
UU: im at main street station waiting for the 7 train.  
UU: althoUgh i do not exactly know where i will live now.  
UU: i mUst confess that i did not think my glorioUs escape throUgh enoUgh.  
GA: Hang On For A Moment.  
GA: I Think I May Be Able To Find You Somewhere To Go.  
UU: ^U^

reliable as always, kanaya came through within minutes. she sent you an address in manhattan, and told you that her sister would be more than willing to let you stay with her until you could find somewhere else to go.

and the longer you stayed in chinatown with these struggling young adults, the more convinced you were that, for the first time, you might be able to control the trajectory of your life. you never quite became a witch, but you gained knowledge of something far more important, that family does not begin and end with genetics.

these college students gave you houseroom although it was not their obligation, although they lived in a studio apartment with no heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer.

they listened to what you had to say. they cared. the validated you, and you basked in that feeling of unconditional positive regard.

“she’s kinda like the little sister i never had or wanted 'til she sorta showed up one day,” mituna remarked one afternoon. porrim, who had been sitting beside hir on the couch eating soup dumplings, rolled her eyes. you giggled at the pair of them.

furthermore, strangely enough, you’d also ended up with an overprotective older brother of sorts, possibly the last person you’d ever expect to take this role. you’d never had an overprotective brother before, so you consulted a few of your friends on the matter.

(UU: is it normal for my adopted older brother to glare at anyone who looks at me fUnny?  
GA: I Am Not Quite Sure  
GA: Although Porrim Is Rather Fond Of Such Things Where I Am Concerned)

with his face adorned by piercings and vaguely unsettling white face paint, he drove a pickup truck that positively reeked of marijuana, usually several miles over the speed limit. also, he spent his free time watching slasher flicks and plotting the deaths of various enemies, your (real) brother among them.

nevertheless, in a surprising show of responsibility, he’d blast his horn in front of the apartment building every until you woke up for school, and when that failed, he banged on the buzzer until porrim, still wearing her nightie, rose to answer it

with one eyebrow quirked, she opened the door a crack. “to what do i owe the misfortune of you waking me up at six-thirty in the morning?”

 _“dropping invertibro and callie-sis at school,”_ he signed. _“also, don’t you motherfuckers have to be up for class pretty soon?”_

bleary-eyed and barely awake enough to avert tripping over hir pile of dirty laundry, mituna glared at him. “my first class doesn’t start until one, you fuckass.”

kurloz gave hir one of one of his cryptically placid smiles. _“early to bed and early to rise makes–”_

in return, mituna blew a raspberry at him, turned a pair of hir (clean) boxers into a slingshot, and hit him square in the forehead.


	6. examination

_november 2009, mituna captor_

 

“i got my PSAT scores,” callie says after she unlocks the door, a folded sheet of paper in her hand. you glance up at her, and her expression is inscrutable.

“did you fail, or…?”

“you can’t fail the PSAT,” she says.

“so they say,” you reply. 

she hands you the score report.

“see for yourself, tuna,” she tells you. “and thank you for helping me prepare for the math.”

“no problemo.”

you unfold the sheet, and your gaze darts to the selection index - _219._ that’s better than you did, you think. you can’t remember. you look back up at her.

“holy shit, callie.”

“is that good?”

you can’t believe her. didn’t she compare scores with anyone else? that was pretty much the first thing you did.

you pack the bowl of your bong. “it’s like the SAT. just stick a zero on the end.”

“oh.”

she’s about to ask you  _“is that good?”_ again.

you note that on the exam, she put down her address as 58 chrystie st. which is - you look around your dump of an apartment, which has become even dumpier than usual with porrim and callie studying for exams - right here. 

“you know why they ask for your address, right?”

“no, sorry.”

“so colleges can send you a shitload of recruitment mail.” you roll your eyes. “they’re gonna blow up our mailbox.”

she apologizes, and you wave it off. this is technically her address now. you pull out your phone and message porrim.

TA: 8R1NG H0M3 DR1NK5  
TA: 73H FR35HM4N GO7 219 0N 73H P547.  
GA: Yo+u do+ realize that September was my 19th birthday, no+t my 21st, yes?  
TA: 73H 54M3 W4Y 1 R34L1Z3 73H L1QU0R 570R3 0N 80W3RY H45 N07 C4RD3D 51NC3 2004.  
GA: And I am suppo+sed to+ support yo+u allo+wing Callio+pe to+ drink while underage?  
TA: Y0U N3V3R H4D 4 PR08L3M W17H M3 G3771NG Y0U W1NE  
TA: 4ND 8R1NG WH173 WH1N3 7H15 71M3 PLZ  
GA: …Sigh.  
GA: What’s in it fo+r me?  
TA: FR33 W1N2  
GA: ….  
TA: 1LL G1V3 Y0U 4 C1G4R37735  
GA: Fine.

 


	7. dissociative

_april 2010, calliope calver_

you don’t know what your blackout moments are called, exactly, until mituna gives you the word, and porrim agrees with a tentative nod.

dissociative. dissociation. 

let it melt on your tongue like an ice chip, until it sinks in fully.

it’s vaguely redolent of a concept you learned in regents chemistry. but it’s weird to apply to your life, as if you’re holding it under a lens, as if you’re…

_(both yourself and not at times, there are times when…)_

_(your name is callie calver, you are twelve years old, and your brother has a can of air freshener in one hand and your father's cigarette lighter in the other._

_"papa's going to be very angry with you for taking that."_

_however, caliborn ignores you._

_"wanna see a magic trick?" he asks, a terrible grin on his face._

_"um..."_

_he flicks the lighter to life, sprays the can of air freshener, and you instinctively twist out of the way._

_but not soon enough._ _not at all soon enough.)_

sometimes you get angry, and then you scream incoherently, you scream and you throw things. 

but that couldn’t have been you, because you’d seen losses of temper in the past, and how they’d terrified you so. 

how could you have broken half of dear porrim’s crockery by hurling it at the bathroom wall while everyone else was out? you don’t remember any of that. but you do remember the shards of china all over the floor, you remember hastily sweeping them up, and the unfocused feeling between your eyes.

there has to be a logical reason why mituna appears to be afraid of you. you’re five foot nothing, meaning ze has nearly a foot on you.

meanwhile, porrim is never scared of you, just worried in that aggressive way of hers. she asks you if you want to talk about anything, and you can practically sense her clocking into the concerned yet detached demeanor she’s cultivated from a few months of nursing school. you try to talk to her, but you don't have the words. you don't know how to express it.

if you were to be honest with yourself, you’re pissed off, you’re more pissed off than you’ve ever been in all of your memory. you’re furious, after living outside of your old home for almost a year and a half, after realizing that you are someone with worth, that a single human being, one you are ostensibly related to, could have ever made you feel so small and powerless…

that you could have stood there and acted as his flinching punching bag...

that people could have watched as it happened and did absolutely nothing...

at least until you finally left

that it fills you with ire beyond words.

and you want to scream your worth from the rooftops but you can’t, so you just chain smoke and watch as your hands enable things to shatter every so often. you feel good, although perhaps good is not the word. you feel

_(that unfocused feeling between your eyes)_

then, kurloz takes you aside one afternoon and, instead of dropping you straight home after model UN, very matter of factly, teaches you how to knit.

 _“i used to break a lot of shit when i was young,”_ he writes,  _“but dr. piven sorted me out, taught me other shit i could do. just something to consider, if you want.”_

he gives you the card for the aforementioned doctor, along with another card, and while you’d never say so out loud, you privately find the suggestion ludicrous. you don’t need a therapist, or - heaven forbid - a psychiatrist. you don’t want someone poking around in your head. you’re not _crazy,_ you’re just

_(something else entirely)_

you like everything where it’s been neatly stacked and compartmentalized, thank you very much, no use in disturbing order. you’re a little afraid of what lurks behind the doorways and distorted funhouse mirrors of your mind.

still, you take to knitting with a vengeance. you can accept that much.

fewer things come up in pieces around the apartment for your efforts. you’re sort of forced to admit, in the face of that kind of evidence, that maybe you were responsible those things. 

maybe you _(dissociation? like sodium chloride in water?)_ should dial that number.

you make sure to stand outside the apartment, across the street, where no one else can hear you.

three rings before someone picks up.

“hello? is this doctor piven’s office?” you ask.

an affirmative answer from the other end.

“my name is calliope calver,” you manage, in your most grown-up sounding voice, even though your mouth is completely dry. “i’d like to schedule an intake appointment, if that’s possible?”


	8. catharsis

**_2010 - Kurloz Makara_ **

You can always tell when Calliope’s just gotten back from sessions with her therapist - even if you didn’t have the dates marked on your calendar - because instead of being tremulous wariness, she’s fire and fury and downright motherfucking glorious to behold. Glorious, in your case, is a synonym for rage. 

You are personally fucking honored that she’s comfortable enough around you to show outward signs of anger, instead of turning everything inward. 

She sits on the couch. Her fingers move fluid on her knitting needles, and you can see it in the way her fingers are spaced, how they itch for something to break, to shred to pieces.

“He took the last of my childhood,” Calliope muses, needles clicking. “ _He took my adolescence._ ”

You nod. 

You are Kurloz Makara, and you are good at silent nodding and silent brooding. You’re good at quiet in general. As it turns out, Calliope is also decent at it, because basically all she did during her therapy session today was stare at her therapist, apparently. She had too many thoughts. She couldn’t decide on a single thing to say, so she said next to nothing.

“Ain’t a motherfuckin’ thing wrong with that,” you sign to her. “Sometimes the words just don’t fuckin’ come. Not worth tryna motherfuckin’ force ‘em.”

“My parents are paying for me to get something out of this,” she says. And then a little more acidly, “guilt money. That’s what they’re paying. So fuck it, then. Fuck them.”

She looks around quickly, guiltily, as if they may have heard her. Almost looks sorry for saying it.

You beam.

“Amen, sister.”

That’s when you decide to take her small, cool hand in yours, and you lead her out of the apartment and uptown. To an abandoned lot in Harlem. Not far from where you grew up.

She blinks, curious, at you, until you dig the dinner set out of your bag. You stole it from the Bed, Bath, and Beyond on 14th Street. Their security ain’t got shit on you.

The serving set is flower-patterned, like the one Calliope had at the home she was raised in.

You figured out early why she had such a penchant for breaking Pomary-sis’s crockery during her dissociative episodes. So then you started keeping extra. 

For moments like these, when Calliope is not the kindest soul on earth. Or when she’s still kind, but a little more human. When she is raw, and angry. She has earned that right, along with several more.

And while she’s not quite dissociated, she launches a dinner plate at a graffiti covered wall so hard that it makes you wince. Damn, sister, go.

She smashes the teacups. She rends the saucers to fine dust, grinding the pieces of one with the heel of her boot. She hurls a serving platter with such force that she overbalances and falls over, kicking up a cloud of dirt as she hits the ground. You run to her, and crouch down to her level, but don’t touch her.

She looks at the scrape on her hands and knee with wonder, as if she can’t fathom how she got them.

“I hurt myself.”

Way to state the motherfucking obvious. You don’t sign that to her, you just think it.

She stares at you, puts a hand on your arm. “I wish I could hurt him. I wish I could give him pain. Does that make me the same as him?”

You shake your head as emphatically as you can without giving yourself an accidental case of whiplash. Revenge is revenge. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to even the score a little. Or a lot.

Caliborn did a lot of fucked up shit. You - by proxy - did a lot of fucked up shit in failing to stop him. Overempathized with the boy who been subjected to the worst parts of the system, who’d been institutionalized once, like you, without noticing the sister he vented his anger upon. She never deserved anything like that. _He_ was the one who set the fire, accidental as it may have been. 

“Oh good,” Callie says, sounding more like the girl you know than she has all day. “My therapist said the same thing, but I wanted to be sure.”

“So you asked me?” you sign.

Calliope nods.

“Yes, because you know a lot about this. You are good at this. You’re Kurloz. And I _trust_ you.”

She takes your hand again, and lets you lead her back home. Home, as in Chinatown. Home as in, Porrim’s making dinner, and it’s not waakye and saltfish, praise the mirthful messiahs. 

She dithers over Calliope’s injuries and dresses them.

You stow away the remaining crockery for another day. You think of Callie smiling.

_“…you know a lot about this. You are good at this. You’re Kurloz. And I trust you.”_

Now, you aren’t good at a lot of shit. Respecting property, for one. Deference to authority, second off. Adherance to your medication regimen. Not listening to your delusions when they come. Holding down a steady job. Doing that math with all the cosines and shit, Trigonometry, you think Tuna-sis called it. Not being a creepy unsettling fuck.

Yeah, you ain’t good at a whole lot of shit.

But you are good at being Kurloz. 

And when Callie smiles at you, you think of Pomary saying, _“Who knows? Maybe you can reach her, more than we can, anyway.”_ You think of Gamzee, grinning, the first Christmas you dressed up as juggalo Santa for him. You think of Mituna high fiving you. You think of your drives with Damara, and your mostly good-natured jibes with Kankri.

You decide you’re cool with being good at being at Kurloz, whatever the fuck that means. 

You push the cat aside with your foot, pack your bong, and light a bowl.


End file.
